


Bonds of brotherhood

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Alea iacta est [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 09:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5086033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Stannis is heir to Storm's End and favourite to a melancholy prince, and many things change as a result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonds of brotherhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariel2me](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/gifts).



**i.**

Visitors compliment Steffon and Cassana on the likeness their second son bears to his great-grandfather, which to Steffon seems a dubious compliment when taken as they intend. It is true, though, that Robert looks a great deal like the Laughing Storm, and has his great, hulking frame, even at just three years. 

There is a scant two years between his and Cassana’s two boys, and while Robert has been the Laughing Storm come again almost from the day of his birth, Steffon sees something of his  _other_  grandfather in quiet Stannis, five years in body and fifty in mind. 

His mother always said that her father was a man of grave nature, towards the end, old for his years and weighed down by burdens not his own. Steffon was but thirteen when his grandfather Aegon died, and remembers him mostly as the King, not the man, but his mother never for a moment gave him any cause to doubt her in such things. She was ever too honest for doubt.

 

**ii.**

Robert shows a streak of brashness that borders on cruelty, even as a little boy. 

It worries Cassana to see such a thing - he throws a cat from the battlements once, to see if it is true that cats always land on their feet, and laughs at the battered remains of his peculiar experiment, which he finds below when he chases after Steffon and Stannis on one of their serious walks about Storm’s End.

She is glad at such times that Robert is not Steffon’s heir - he is too quick to anger, too quick to violence, even at six years of age, turning on Stannis at the smallest of slights. Stannis is the taller by a fair margin, but Robert is a heavier child, and has such a strength in his tempers that it astonishes them all.

He is clever, though, and never shows such a temper before guests, and so everyone continues to compliment their bright, smiling boy, and ignore their sombre, serious heir.

**iii.**

Stannis, somehow, suits court better than Robert.

How it happens baffles Steffon, it truly does - Robert ought to shine at court, but he seems jealous that he is not so readily pleasing to Aerys and Rhaella as he feels he ought to be, as he is to Steffon’s bannermen at home, and it makes him ill-tempered and short as he usually only is in private.

Stannis, however, is grave and respectful, polite if a little stiff - to hide his nervousness and his desperate shyness, Steffon thinks, and Cassana agrees - and endears himself to Aerys with his quiet nature and outwardly agreeable demeanour. In truth, Stannis is a boy of eight, one who has taken to heart Maester Cressen’s lessons about the fealty owed by a vassal to his liege, and he would never speak against his King, not even over dinner.

Their third night at court, Aerys insists that Stannis try the oysters, to which Stannis has always been terribly allergic, but Stannis’ obedience is so ingrained that he eats them anyway. The sickness and hives he suffers that night and the next day do more than any conversation will to temper his blind faith in the King’s judgement, Steffon knows.

**iv.**

The idea of Stannis growing further, growing into a  _man,_ under Aerys’ care frightens Steffon. Aerys is not the man Steffon once knew and loved, and Tywin is just as changed, if in a different way.

How is he to trust them with his hard-faced, soft-hearted boy?

**v.**

Prince Rhaegar above all takes a shine to Stannis, surprising everyone. 

Stannis is confused by this - no one has ever liked him very much before, always preferring Robert, who is so personable and charming, but Prince Rhaegar is quiet-natured, too, and solemn. Stannis finds it simple to spend time with the Prince, who loves his books as other men seem to love wine, or women, or war.

The Prince takes many of Stannis’ lessons upon himself, despite being only a little Stannis’ elder. He seems to enjoy the lessons as a means of honing his own skills, though, tutoring Stannis in High Valyrian and in sums one day, in philosophy and botany another. It is odd, being so much the focus of any person’s attention save Mother’s or Father’s, but the Prince is easy company.

**vi.**

Robert visits court again when he is nine, on his way to the Eyrie to foster with boring old Jon Arryn. He thinks it terribly unfair that boring old Stannis gets to live in King’s Landing, but he is their lord father’s  _heir_ , and a favourite of the King’s. 

Robert cannot understand that - the King must be more boring than he seemed, to like Stannis so much that he wanted him to live in the Red Keep - because  _he_  was at court with their parents as well, and  _everyone_  prefers him to Stannis. 

Stannis, when they are reunited, is not quite how Robert remembers him, which makes sense, after three long years. Stannis is much taller now, his shoulders broader, his face less gaunt, but there is something else, too, something for which Robert has no name.

“He seems happier here,” Father says, while they are waiting for Stannis to come to the rooms they have been given, within Maegor’s Holdfast. “More sure of himself.”

And it is true, when Stannis enters their rooms in Prince Rhaegar’s company, Robert can see the difference in him as plain as day. He stands straighter, his face less grim as well as less gaunt, and embraces Father with a confidence Robert never saw in his brother before.

“Robert,” Stannis says, and something like a smile flickers over his thin mouth. “I am pleased that you are here - it has been too long since we were together.”

Robert has half a mind to tell Stannis that he ought to have come home to Storm’s End, then, before Robert went away to foster. It is terribly unfair that Stannis should be rewarded for his selfishness in living away at court with Father’s approval and the friendship of a  _prince,_ while Robert has only the drafty old Eyrie to look forward to, after being so good a son _._

**vii.**

“Tell me, little cousin,” the Prince says one day, apropos of nothing - or at least, so it seems to Stannis. They are at practice in the yard, Ser Gerold correcting the Prince’s grip and Prince Lewyn correcting Stannis’ stance. Prince Rhaegar is a better swordsman than Stannis, and so far is proving better with a lance, but Stannis is stubborn and strong, and has the makings of a bigger man than Rhaegar. Someday, he might hope to best his cousin, hammer on sword, or even sword on sword, if he works hard enough at it. 

The knights and swordsmen of King’s Landing disdain the warhammer as a brute’s weapon, a weapon not needing skill or finesse, but Stannis regards it as a weapon he  _should_  wield. Many generations of Baratheons have wielded warhammers, putting the long reach and powerful strength that runs in their line to good use.

But he does not say that. He is expected to behave in a certain way here in King’s Landing, things that he could say to Father that he cannot say here, things he could do in Storm’s End that are not permissible in Maegor’s Holdfast.

“Tell me, little cousin,” the Prince says, “what do you think of Lord Tywin’s plan to wed me to his daughter, the Lady Cersei?”

Stannis does not know how the Prince knows of this plan, and he does not know what to say. 

**viii.**

Robert has taken it into his head that he wishes to wed Lord Stark’s daughter, and wishes for Stannis to  make the offer. So Robert’s letter says, anyhow, all while extolling the virtues of this Lyanna Stark, as detailed to him by her brother, Robert’s beloved foster-brother, Eddard Stark.

Stannis thinks that Robert has lost his sense, high up in the Eyrie. There is no hope of a man of so proud a reputation as Rickard Stark handing his only daughter to a _second_ son, after all.

“I am to be wed to an only daughter,” Rhaegar says, twenty years of borrowed sorrow weighing down his slim shoulders in a way Stannis still does not understand, even after all this time as friends. “It is an… Odd burden. I do not think your brother understands the significance of it.”

Robert rarely understands anything not immediately concerning himself, Stannis has noticed, a trait which has only worsened with time. Even when their parents were killed in the storm… But that is not for now. 

Tywin Lannister’s plans all fell through, and Rhaegar is to wed the Princess Elia of Dorne - but he has doubts, as he always does.

“Mayhaps you ought to wed the Lady Lyanna yourself, Lord Baratheon,” Ser Arthur says, lips pursed to hide a smile. “It is more important that you wed than your brother, after all.”

**ix.**

“If I asked a favour of you, little cousin,” Rhaegar says quietly, guiding Stannis through dark tunnels by torchlight, “would you grant it to me?”

Ordinarily, Stannis would say no - he is not in the habit of giving out favours, but this is Rhaegar, who has been his friend when no others have, who has loved him as a brother even when his own brothers would deny him.

“Ask it,” Stannis says, tugging his cloak closer around himself against the damp chill of the tunnels. “What can I do for you?”

Elia Martell is a finer wife than Lyanna Stark, Stannis thinks, even if she is not the wife he would have asked for - he is not the husband she would have asked for, either, but he is appeasement enough to halt a war, when Rhaegar reveals  _his_  wife.

A combination of two claims to the throne, Aegon V’s and that of his elder brother, Aerion Brightflame, will be given life in the children of Rhaegar has by his half-Pentoshi wife, Vala Targaryen. The granddaughter of Aerion’s son, a proud, cool-tempered woman, Vala is everything Stannis’ parents were sent to find in Essos, but somehow missed.

He dislikes her just for that, but accepts her as RHaegar’s wife on Arthur Dayne and Oswell Whent’s testimony, and travels to Sunspear himself to offer himself in Rhaegar’s place for the Princess.

**x.**

“I need three children,” Rhaegar says, “and the maesters say Princess Elia is not likely to survive birthing one.”

Stannis does not know what to say to that, and wishes for many things. That Rhaegar were the man Stannis believed him to be, that he knew his wife-to-be well enough to confide in her, that Father were still here to guide him.

Mostly, Stannis wishes that he were closer to his brother, so he might take Robert into his confidences, so he might have his brother’s brashness to balance his own reserve, but that is not to be. Time has run too long, and there is naught to be done.


End file.
